All They Can Do Is Eat Me
by Mediancat
Summary: Spike and Xander crash onto a desert island . . . and encounter far too many people.


They staggered from the surf onto the dry white sand of the beach.  
  
"Where the fuck are we?" Spike asked.  
  
"Looks like an island," Xander said. "What are you complaining about? We're alive – well, one of us, anyway."  
  
"You're missing my point." He picked up the white sand and let it fall beneath his fingers. "There's no islands with sand like this anywhere NEAR the coast of Sunnydale."  
  
"Right now," Xander said, "I'm just glad we're not shark food." He looked out into the waters behind him. "Look at that." There were fins circling the water not two hundred feet out from shore.  
  
"That's another thing," Spike said. "Sharks only make like that in old Warner Brothers cartoons. There's something – what's this?" Spike bent down and picked up a volleyball with a face painted on it. "Hmm."  
  
"What is it?" Spike showed him the volleyball. "Wait a second," Xander said. "This looks just like –"  
  
"Yeah. I know."  
  
"You saw the movie?"  
  
"Sometimes," Spike said, "It gets bloody boring hanging around inside a crypt all day. So I go on movie crawls."  
  
"And you chose THAT movie?"  
  
"It was a choice between that and some damned Disney cartoon," Spike explained.  
  
Xander laughed. "I would have made the same choice." Right then a dismal- looking man with a long beard wandered onto the beach, stage right. Xander gave Spike a sick look. "You don't think –"  
  
"I don't think, mate. I KNOW."  
  
"Excuse me," the man said raggedly. "Have you seen Wilson?"  
  
Spike said, "You mean the nosy neighbor from Home Improvement?"  
  
"Huh?" the man said. "No. My friend. My friend Wilson. He's been the only one keeping me company."  
  
"Oh," Spike said. "You mean this." He produced the ball.  
  
"Yeah," the man said. Spike turned around and punted it deeply into the ocean. "Why'd you do that?"  
  
"Maybe now you'll have incentive to built a boat and NOT WAIT several bloody years."  
  
The man wandered off, dejectedly.  
  
"That wasn't nice," Xander commented.  
  
"So?" Spike said challengingly.  
  
"Nothing," Xander said. "Just commenting."  
  
They waited a bit but no one else appeared. "Maybe we'd better go exploring?" Xander said.  
  
"Why not?" Spike said. "It beats hanging around out here."  
  
So they wandered a bit back into the woods and soon came upon a small cove. "Didn't see this from the outside," Xander commented. "And are those huts?"  
  
"They are," Spike said. "And some boards off a ship, too."  
  
"There's no one around right now," Xander said. "Let's look around." Xander peered into a couple of the huts and saw a large array of outfits – the kind that rich people never wore except in bad movies from the 1930s, and bad television shows from the 1960s.  
  
And they never took that many if they were only going to be gone for three hours.  
  
Plus, like Spike said, there were NO islands like this within an hour and a half of California.  
  
Xander was about to look into another hut when Spike yelled, "They're coming back," and sprinted off into the woods.  
  
It took a bit, but Xander caught up to him at the base of a huge tree. "So you had it figured, too?"' he asked.  
  
"Yeah. No one EVER brings that much –"  
  
"When they're only going to be away from the docks three hours. I know. I already made that observation."  
  
Spike gave him a sour look. "Seems to me you're forgetting who the wry observer is around here, and who's the straight man."  
  
"A thousand pardons, effendi," Xander said, grinning. "I shall do my best not to forget again."  
  
"See that you don't," the vampire said. Then he looked up. "What the?"  
  
Xander followed his gaze. The tree had been hollowed out – and it looked like people were LIVING inside.  
  
A young man poked his head out of the opening in the tree. "Hullo?" he said with an odd English accent. "Were you fellows stranded here as well?"  
  
"Yes," Spike said. "That we were." Then, under his breath to Xander, "Let's get going."  
  
"My name's Fritz," the young man said. "What's yours?"  
  
"Why?" Xander asked Spike. "Seems they have a nice setup here."  
  
"Because they were stranded hundreds of years ago," Spike said. "They won't have even HEARD about a radio."  
  
"Alright," Xander said and followed the vampire away from the tree.  
  
"Plus," Spike continued, "They got stranded on an island that couldn't POSSIBLY have existed anywhere on the planet. Lions, kangaroos, penguins, sea turtles . . . trees the size of redwoods . . . plus there's the fact that they're bloody well supposed to be SWISS. With THAT last name?"  
  
"I guess you're right," Xander said as they made their way back to the shore. "Though I'm surprised we haven't run into someone with that FIRST name."  
  
"He'd be pretty much the only one we HAVEN'T hit," Spike said. "I mean . . . run."  
  
"Run?"  
  
"Run." Spike said. Then, to punctuate his words, he turned around and fled. Xander looked up, saw the pig's head on a stick, and followed Spike down the beach.  
  
"Anyone following us?" Spike said.  
  
Turning his head as they ran, Xander scanned the beach behind them. "No."  
  
"Good." They sank down onto the sand. The impossibly white sand. "Oh, bloody –" Spike pointed to two men, one gnarled but tough-looking, one overweight, bearded and naked, walking down the beach towards them.  
  
"Are you guys our challenge?" The bearded man said. "Because you're certainly not from either tribe."  
  
"Challenge?" Xander gave Spike a sick look, which the vampire returned.  
  
"Yeah," the gnarled one said. "Do we have to beat ya up, or somethin'?" He was too crusty for words. Central Casting would have been proud. "Because I think I can take ya."  
  
"I'd like to see you try," Spike said. "Tell me. Do both of your names start with R?" They both looked at him and nodded. "Thought so." He promptly ripped both of their heads off, then fell to the ground and screamed. When he recovered, he drank some of their blood and said, "Nice survival job, wankers." Then he glared at Xander. "Any complaints?"  
  
"Not a one," Xander said. "Except I wouldn't have drunk their blood." Then he thought. "I wonder if this means the REST of them are here, too."  
  
Spike paused in mid-suck. "Gods, I hope not." He paused for a second. "But I'm telling you this much. I ain't sticking around to find out." He made for the ocean.  
  
"Are you out of your mind?" Xander demanded.  
  
Stopping in the surf, Spike said, "Mate, you can hang around this island all you want to and be bored to death. Me? I'm taking my chances with the sharks. All they can do is kill me." Then he swam away.  
  
Xander thought for a second, then yelled after Spike, "WAIT FOR ME!" and jumped in the water after the vampire. "Wait! Wait! Don't leave me here . . ." 


End file.
